Why are so many Mac users anti-gaming?

It happens again and again -- someone mentions that they want to play games on their computer and horde of posters on this board join in on a anti-gaming rant, posting things like "PC gaming is dead" "get a console" and implying that those that don't share their views on gaming are immature misguided fools.

This reaction only seems to happen on Mac forums, not general topic or PC forums. Why are there so many Mac users around who feel the need to spread FUD about the gaming industry and belittle people that enjoy gaming on their computers?

Consoles command the vast majority of video game sales, last I checked, and the figures are growing. I have been known to pan the future of PC gaming, although it's probably true that it will continue for a while, predominantly catering towards mouse-based games like civilization and world of warcraft. As consoles get more and more powerful, and, as we are seeing, become less architecturally similar to PCs, it will be difficult to port games from console to PC and vice versa. It should be clear to anyone who's not extremely biased that action games have nearly abandonned the PC platform already. In due time, stalwarts like Unreal Tournament will either switch or fade into obscurity.

It's just not a compelling argument to have to buy a $400 graphics card that produces inferior graphics than a $400 console.

It happens again and again -- someone mentions that they want to play games on their computer and horde of posters on this board join in on a anti-gaming rant, posting things like "PC gaming is dead" "get a console" and implying that those that don't share their views on gaming are immature misguided fools.

This reaction only seems to happen on Mac forums, not general topic or PC forums. Why are there so many Mac users around who feel the need to spread FUD about the gaming industry and belittle people that enjoy gaming on their computers?

Rez,

While I have seen those comments directed at gamers, they are not based solely on someone stating they'd like to play games. Generally, it stems from some gamer demanding to know why Apple won't build a computer for their needs, why Apple won't put graphics card X into the Mac Mini, or that they can build a monster AMD gaming machine for $1,500. You have to understand that Apple doesn't cater to gamers, and thusly those of us who use Macs obviously aren't the kind of people who spend a large part of their day gaming on our computers. While the Mac does have some games, it would be your last platform choice if gaming is a priority for you. And with that, Mac users as a whole aren't going to be the kind of people who have an understanding or desire to game on their computer.

It's like going to a Broadway musical and demanding to see some titties. The audience is going to throw things at you, and tell you to go down the street to the titty club.

Cory is right. The animosity comes from the constant complaints about how Apple's latest machine doesn't have the whiz-bangiest graphics card on the market and how Unreal Tournament won't be able to get any more than 1 bazillion FPS with the "crappy" card that was included. Any tried and true Mac user will tell you that, if you want a gaming PC, go to the Windows side. Gaming is a Mac's weakest characteristic.

A lot of people just don't get it, either. You can't expect that a $599 machine is going to be a knock-out gaming computer. Heck, you can't expect that it's going to be a knock-out HD editing computer, either. You get what you pay for. That said, the Mac mini has a pretty good graphics card even though it is integrated. It certainly makes no claims of being a great graphics card because it's too affordable to be one.

Cause there you can play most of the games ever released for Mac and are multi player. Games like Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, C&C zero Hour expansion,Rise of Nations, Ghost Recon, Raven Shield, Americas Army, Call of Duty, CoD United Ofensive, an the list its long.

For the FPS we have even a league, maybe our games are not high end as PC Windows but our games are nice, well designed, and can provide unlimited ours of fun.

Game Ranger its a free software plus serves also as a place to know a lot of people from around the world, u can find even some tech support and the people its friendly, we also play vs PC dudes that have games like Ghost Recon or Americas Army (wich is free btw)

If you like to play alone Mac versions are very playable, Doom runs better on INTEL Macs and that game its freaking nice.

I dont understand why some people critic Mac games and compared it to consoles. I had the luck to know GR 4 years ago with my Tibook G4 500 mhz and that machine only had 8 mbs of ram and it never let me down. Now I have a "faster one" and still have fun, lots of it.

My Game Ranger alias its: [a] FrOg

Give it a try, The mac as gaming machine and Game Ranger as a place for play and comunity.

Consoles command the vast majority of video game sales, last I checked, and the figures are growing.

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Just like Accord and Camry command the vast majority of passenger sedan sales... that doesn't mean that Toyota will drop other cars from the line-up...

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As consoles get more and more powerful, and, as we are seeing, become less architecturally similar to PCs,

They will not become completely separate from PCs. They will go (just like before) in phases... simply PCs will continue to define state-of-the-art and only then the technology will be adapted towards consoles. Why? Because you can't make much money on console hardware... Intel, ATI, Nvidia don't make money on mainstream hardware, but rather on the state-of-the-art high end stuff.

All of the technology that we see in consoles today is really a hand-me-down from PC market.

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it will be difficult to port games from console to PC and vice versa.

That question is not so trivial to answer because the difference in APIs will, most like, be determined by political and financial alliances of companies, rather than purely by difference in hardware.

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It should be clear to anyone who's not extremely biased that action games have nearly abandonned the PC platform already.

I guess I'm biased then because it's not clear to me. Unless console manufacturers will adopt 6 month redesign/ update cycle for their hardware, the state-of-the-art games will still run ONLY on the current state-of-the-art hardware available on a PC which can be upgraded, unlike the console.

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It's just not a compelling argument to have to buy a $400 graphics card that produces inferior graphics than a $400 console.

The thing is, that a $400 video card bought at the time console ships will produce better graphics than the console!

The thing is, that a $400 video card bought at the time console ships will produce better graphics than the console!

. . .

All of the technology that we see in consoles today is really a hand-me-down from PC market.

I'm only going to address this part of your response, since the rest was superfluous. You basically agreed with me that PC gaming isn't dead, nor will it be dead soon. The only difference is that I take a glass-half-empty stance and you a glass-half-full. Either way, however, the end position is the same.

But I'm not sure that a $400 video card bought at the time of console release can offer better graphics than the console. It has been somewhat true in the past, but the PS3 has the potential to offer some ridiculous graphics. We will certainly see. I will remind you that the Cell is very well suited to break down 3D rendering tasks into chunks that are much easier for a GPU to deal with than, say, what DirectX or OpenGL can get you.

Anyway, whether it succeeds or not, the PS3 is already a pivotal point in the history of computers and electronics, not to mention the video game industry. It will alter expections of what consoles and PCs can and can't do. Lastly, both the xBox360 (out now), and the PS3 have hardware that was never in PCs, and likely will never be. So your argument that consoles contain vintage PC hardware is completely incorrect.

Thats...wrong. The Xbox 360 has the R580 chip. A.K.A. the X1800XT. The PS3 will have the 7800GTX. The 7800GTX! Thats a last generation card! Don't tell me that the 8800GTX will produce worse graphics then a 7800GTX.

Thats...wrong. The Xbox 360 has the R580 chip. A.K.A. the X1800XT. The PS3 will have the 7800GTX. The 7800GTX! Thats a last generation card! Don't tell me that the 8800GTX will produce worse graphics then a 7800GTX.

I'm talking about the main cpu. The quality of graphics as well as general game performance has to do with cpu and gpu, among many other things. Next time, instead of just responding for the sake of responding, read the damn post. I reference Cell and Xenon.

I'm not anti Mac-gaming. In fact, I game on my Mac. Mainly Unreal Tournament 2004, though I also played Halo, Call Of Duty... actually quite a lot of games, when they came out. I might get Doom 3 now that I have a MacBook Pro.

With all that being said, there is absolutely nothing Apple can do to make sure all of the latest PC games will always be instantly available on the Mac. Because of that, if you use your computer only for gaming, and always want the latest PC games, you will be better off with Windows, or an XBox 360, or the new PS3 (when that comes out).

I'm talking about the main cpu. The quality of graphics as well as general game performance has to do with cpu and gpu, among many other things. Next time, instead of just responding for the sake of responding, read the damn post. I reference Cell and Xenon.

You are right.

theapplegenius, the graphics chip in the Xbox 360 has unified pipelines, which neither the X1800 and X1900 have. It is still a step ahead in terms of design. The next generation of ATi chip will be at the same technical level as the Xbox chip. The chip in the PS3 is essentially 2 7800s (the GPU is based on one, but they didn't get one and plonk in into the PS3 box).

I've noticed that most computer gamers already have consoles, they play games on their computers that don't don't play well, or don't exist on consoles, like World of Warcraft, which is why I find the "get a console" posts pointless.

I started building windows PCs soon after unreal tournament came out for the Mac because I really liked the game, and even after I got the fasted voodoo card available my Mac would not run it well enough for me to compete on the ladders. Since then I've upgraded twice (about once every 2 1/2 years), and I never spend more than $200 on a video card (which, if you buy it at the right time, will handle every game currently available).

The thing is, I don't want to have to build PCs to play games, I want to ditch the PC and play games exclusively on my Mac. I've been playing games on Apple computers for over 20 years and the selection of games for the Mac is better than ever, and the processors are powerful enough to handle the games. The only thing missing is the GPU. It is very aggravating that the you have to spend over $2000 to get a Mac with a video-card that has a street price of over $100 -- it is the only thing keeping me from tossing out my PC.

Windows won the gaming war because they made the platform gamer-friendly from the early days, Direct-X, early support for 3rd party video acccelerators (think 3DFX(later bought by Nvidia)), a few games that they themselves produced to "show off" the potential, like Flight Simulator.

Throughout the 1990s, while MS was building a gaming empire, and expanding their business app empire, Apple was ignoring both of these groups, effectivly saying "we dont want your business unless you run photoshop and pagemaker" they made flakey OSs (Was itpossible to use system7 and OS 8 for more than 2 hrs without a system crash or some sort of app meltdown?) and theres proformance too, the early Penteums were smoking the 68x00s, and even the early (pre-G3) PPC chips, and the IBM/Compaq/Gateway/AST/HPs of the world were cheaper.

Apple was bussy doing, well, nothing, other than the newton untill Jobs took back over in '97, but then it was already pretty much over, Jobs knew this, so he took the opprotunity to turn the corner, chuck the old OS and build the NEXT technologies on top of BSD, adding things like OpenGL, making game dev a whole world better on the mac than it was, but the gaming market was and is still largly windows only (although more titles are getting mac releses alongside the Windows versions now)

If the gaming market changes the defacto platform, I would expect it to be Linux, not OSX that wins, because PC gamers demand hardware modularity and flexability to a level that Macs just do not offer. If that ever happens, OSX ports of the games should be a simple matter of a recompile on the OSX kernal, if the game runs in full screen, then no aqua or quartz coding would be needed, OGL would handle all the heavy stuff.